Last night’s midseason premiere of The Walking Dead (read Stephen’s review of The Walking Dead, “Suicide King” here) scored a staggering 12.3 million viewers, which is the series’ largest audience to date. The episode also proved strong in the coveted 18-49 demo, garnering 7.7 million viewers with the key demographic. In fact, the series average for the 18-49 demo is higher than those of network hits like Modern Family, NCIS, and even The Big Bang Theory. The show’s previous ratings record was the season three premiere which scored 10.9 million viewers, but the numbers just continue to climb. When taking into account the encore broadcasts of the episode, a total of 16.6 million people watched The Walking Dead last night.

The ratings feat of last night’s episode is even more impressive when you take into account the fact that the show was airing opposite the 2013 Grammy Awards, which are an annual ratings draw. Despite AMC’s apparent revolving door approach to TWD showrunners, it’s safe to assume that the show will be on the air for a very, very long time should these kinds of numbers continue.